


Steel Hands

by squire



Series: Everything Of Me [4]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Asphyxiation, Bets, Choking, Cock Cages, D/s, Dominant Hux, Emperor Hux, Everything Consensual, Fighting, Game of Cat and Mouse, Groping, Knight Ren, M/M, Orgasm Delay, Rimming, Roleplay, Submissive Kylo Ren, Switching, Topping from the Bottom, Unarmed Combat, heed the chapter tags for additional warnings, though neither safe nor sane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-03 00:39:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6589666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squire/pseuds/squire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here they are. Power with its countless different forms binds them together like a red string. Hux can taste all the different flavours - like blood between his teeth, like wine at the back of his throat, like fire under his skin, drums in his veins, his bones heavy as a planet core. The Knight, sworn to protect the Emperor, to enforce his will. The master, taking care of Ren where he doesn't know how to. Kylo, making his home inside Hux, changing him irreversibly, in his palm the simple truth that should he ever walk away, Hux would not know what to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapters contains descriptions of cruelty inflicted on animals. Bear in mind that this is fictional universe, and that what applies here doesn't need to apply there and vice versa. If reading about violent methods of horse taming triggers you, skim the end of this chapter.

Hux is not furious when he rounds the last corner in the corridor leading to the Emperor's suite on the flagship. Fury is self-serving and excessive, a haze blurring judgment. Hux prefers to compartmentalise his emotions, use each of them with precision and to their maximum efficiency. His fury had abated as soon as the conference room had been cleared. Anger - a feeling far deeper, heavier, more persistent than fury - had been pushed onto the back burner of his mind while he personally re-scheduled the rest of the negotiations. Even irritation, that prickly feeling of thoughts grinding against the well-worn paths like rebellious cogs in a machine, has simmered to a low level before he reached his quarters. He needs to be in absolute control of himself if he wants to be in control of this situation. In control of Ren.

The above-door scan picks up on his body signatures and the door parts before him soundlessly. The black, masked figure standing forlornly in the middle of the room doesn't even twitch. Ren could probably sense the molten durasteel of Hux's thoughts rolling down the corridors from three levels afar.

"What was that, Ren?" Hux asks, calm, sure that Ren knows what he means.

The time Hux gave himself to master his emotions - while he worked on cleaning up the worst of the mess - has also given Ren enough opportunity to think on what he's done. His previous blind rage is gone; now he stands, hunching a little, the subtle changes to his usually intimidating posture clear to Hux's trained eye. Beneath that mask, the Knight is anxious: he knows he's in trouble.

 After he'd been dismissed from the conference room, with one harsh word under Emperor's breath ordering him to wait in his quarters, he's been doing exactly that - waiting alone - long enough that his nerves has kicked in. He's still radiating defensiveness but he's not so sure of himself, that arrogant self-righteousness is no longer wrapped around him like a crackling armour. Hux allows himself a silent congratulation on his managing skills. With just a little time in solitude, half of his work is done.

"That was..." Ren begins, then pauses, clearly rethinking his next words into something less arrogant than originally came onto his tongue, "I acted in the best interest of the Empire."

"By choking half-to-death an important guild master from a strategic region that we're _striving_ to make into our ally?"

Ren's mask takes off a lot of the finer nuances of his voice but the filtered voice still manages to sound sullen: "His mind is impure."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Hux resists the urge to roll his eyes and adds: "And take that damn thing off when I speak with you."

Ren obeys without protest. At least, when you're willing to ignore the scowl, which Hux certainly is not.

"If you want to tell me he's a two-faced scum I already know that. I've taken that into account when I formed my strategy for this negotiations." Hux then pauses when it occurs to him that Ren's most ridiculous, melodramatic proclamations are often literal. For some obscure reason, Ren likes to speak like an ancient oracle.

"And if you mean that you didn't like what he likes to think about in his private time, then you shouldn't have dug around in his head in the first place."

Ren's scowl darkens. "His filth was so loud I hardly had to–"

Hux doesn't want to hear any of it. "You're supposed to be my watchdog, Ren! To observe and eliminate the real threats. Not to charge at perceived slights like some rabid beast."

"He deserved what I did," Ren mutters into the high ribbed collar of his tunic, like a petulant child. Just like he used the Force to throw that man's body into the far wall mid-sentence, cutting off his honeyed words and then his air as well by an invisible grip. Like a child playing with a doll, chucking it away as soon as it ceases to amuse them. Hux has had quite enough of it.

"Silence." The tone of his voice - not elevated but with an edge that cuts through ranks and instincts alike - has an instantaneous effect. Ren's knees actually sway a bit. Hux files it away as an interesting information. The entire situation is oddly confusing, when Hux thinks on it - Ren clearly knows he has made a mistake, he's apparently ready to accept punishment for it, and yet he keeps trying to justify it. Something about this doesn't add up. Hux will need to look into it later and unravel it before it festers into a bigger problem.

But for now, whatever reasons Ren might have had, the consequences of his outburst were nearly disastrous. Hux has to correct the errant behaviour first and speculate about what triggered it later.

"Your lack of self-control disrupted a meeting of state importance. You nearly killed an important ally. You need to learn better self-control, Ren."

Ren bows his head in acquiescence and then, to Hux's faint surprise, walks slowly up to him. Somehow, the great Knight manages not to loom for once, his extra inches and the breadth of his shoulders diminished by the chastised expression on the still too young face. He has the eyes of a dog that wishes nothing more than to crawl back into his master's good graces, and it's with that peculiar look that Ren slides to his knees in front of Hux and briefly rests his forehead against the Emperor's knee before he looks back up, face open and strangely innocent: "Then teach me."

Hux blinks. Despite Ren's movements being slow and languid, this doesn't feel like seduction. Frankly, it would earn Ren a sharp kick in the jaw if he even tried to seduce his way out of punishment  but this feels... genuine. Another piece of grit in the gears. Later, Hux tells himself. Later.

"Do you think you deserve this place?" he nods coldly to the spot where Ren's knees are warming the floor. The Knight is still nuzzling Hux's thigh with his cheek and Hux thinks he can feel the flutter of those long eyelashes through the fabric of his breeches. But at his stern tone, Ren leans back, misery written all over his face.

Hux begins to wonder whether this is really such a good act - and in that case, he would need to nip it in the bud swiftly and ruthlessly, he won't stand for any kind of manipulation from his Knight - or if Kylo is truly upset so much. By such a - let's say it, considering the Force-user's nature - commonplace incident.  

"There's nowhere else I want to be," Ren says to the tips of Hux's shined boots.

It's true, Hux realises. The expression that passed over Ren's face when he assumed this position was nothing short of absolute fulfilment. If a string of code entered into a door lock could have feelings, it would be this flicker of satisfied accomplishment as it beeps and gets accepted - a thing done as it should be done.

But if it's something that Ren craves, Hux can use it to teach him what he needs to learn.

"Then earn it," he says.

"Right now..." and he lifts his foot lazily and places it in the centre of Ren's chest, "you're no more useful to me..." he presses and Ren goes without resistance, bending backwards until his shoulders make contact with the floor, his knees at a painful angle and his back arched, "...than an untamed, untrained beast." Hux slides his boot up until he can feel the hollow of Ren's throat under the tip and steadily increases the pressure until Ren lets out a small keen.

The fabric of the high collar under the sole of his boot is elastic and thin enough that Hux can feel the bob of the Adam's apple as Ren swallows reflexively. He keeps the forward pressure, pushing the cartilage up until the keen hitches and transforms into a gurgling sound. Sweat breaks out around Ren's eyes and covers his temples in a sticky sheen when Hux finally lets go.

"Coat, jacket and tunic off. You may keep the undershirt. Then come here," Hux orders curtly, otherwise ignoring the heaving form under his feet as he steps over Ren and goes to his bedroom to sit at the edge of his bed.

Ren follows with wet eyes and flushed face. Not with arousal, Hux notices - at least, not yet. Ren is unsure about his body reactions to choking but he's curious. He lets himself be arranged into lying prone on his back, head barely supported by the soft edge of the mattress.

"Do you know how the wild horses are tamed?" Hux begins, bringing his left hand to rest in the same place his boot had been earlier. The imprint is still there, faint and obscure shape of a boot sole. He's not closing his hand, yet, just rubbing his thumb up and down the jumping pulse of Ren's carotid artery.

"They have to be broken," he continues, divulging the secret in a light conversational tone. "The rider has to get on the stallion and clamp down on the beast's ribcage, keeping the pressure with his legs. The horse bucks, and tries to dislodge him, but slowly, steadily, it loses breath, and with that... comes fear."

Now he lets his fingers curl around Ren's neck. The muscles running from the clavicle to the occipital bone are strong, the sinews under skin thick like cords, Hux's fingers are almost not enough to span the width he needs but only almost.

"It's a primal, instinctual thing," Hux muses. "Reflex written so deep in your hindbrain that no training ever can erase it. Surely you are familiar with it. You do like to choke people as a method of intimidation."

Ren attempts to swallow under the pressure and finds that he can't. The mattress yields under the weight Hux puts on his hand and Ren's head is hanging off the edge of the bed now, the angle steadily growing steeper the more Hux presses down. Ren's face is taking on a purple colour, the combined effect of lack of air and blood rushing to his head, and his chest is shaking with the effort to suck in enough air through the ever constricting passage.

"It's the fear that breaks the horse," Hux tells him. Then he shifts the heel of his palm just a little and cuts off Ren's air entirely.   

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's say that Hux had a very bad day, and he's not immune to mistakes. He will pull his head out of his behind sooner than you think.


	2. II

At first, nothing happens.

Ren grows just a shade more purple but otherwise he keeps still. Smart enough to save his strength. The silly cropped undershirt he wears under his robes allows Hux to observe the rock-hard clench of his midriff, the little involuntary spasms of muscles between the ribs trying to do their job, to suck in air that isn't coming. Ren's body is an ode to compact strength, he could throw off Hux's hand any moment. He doesn't. His hands grasp two fistfuls of sheets instead and stay where they are.

Hux realises he's been counting when his inner clock hits a minute mark. His own head is starting to feel a bit dizzy as he was subconsciously holding his own breath. Startled, he eases his grip a fraction, and immediately Ren's chest heaves and he breathes in a long, wheezing gulp of air. Hux doesn't allow him anything more than that. He clamps down again and Ren only tilts his head into the pressure.

 _Breathe_ , Hux reminds himself and suddenly it occurs to him that Ren's ability to hold back breath is bound to be above average. He has been trained to become a Jedi, after all, and stars know what tricks Snoke had taught him. Hux has seen old holovids of Jedi knights exposed to nerve gas in a closed room. Any living being would have long dropped unconscious but when the fog cleared, those bastards had jumped out of there in top fight form.

They learn to control their base body functions in meditation. Hux leans over and checks Ren's pupils. Dilated, as expected. He presses his free hand briefly next to his sternum. The steady thump of heartbeat underneath his palm is slow, like of a creature hibernating under a layer of ice. Hells, Hux doesn't want Ren to meditate. He wants him to sweat and trash and for fucking once experience what he so breezily inflicts on anyone unfortunate enough to provoke his temper.

"So you think you can control this," he says, low, to Ren's face. He allows a thin trickle of air to get past his grip before he grinds down on Ren's windpipe again, just to throw him off his concentration. Ren uses the extra oxygen to tug the corner of his mouth into a tiny smirk.

"You lasted much longer in your training, didn't you. I wonder if you enjoyed it. Some people do, you know." And Hux slides his right hand across Ren's abdomen and dips it under the waistband of his trousers.

That seems to have an effect on Ren - his eyes flicker in surprise and the glacial pulse in Hux's grip on his throat jumps over an odd beat and speeds a little. What honestly surprises Hux more is the softness that meets his hand. Ren is unaffected, at least he was until now: his cock reacts to the intimately familiar heat of Hux's palm with a traitorous twitch. And yet, as Hux continues fondling him, he's slow to get hard.

But there's only so much even a Jedi trained body can withstand. With the blood rushing in the direction where Ren doesn't need it, it is harder for him to concentrate on controlling his breathing reflexes. Adrenaline kicks in, late and the more eager, triggering the fight-or-flight instincts. Hux can see the veins on Ren's arms standing out as he fights to keep them still. A drop of sweat runs from the bridge of his nose across his forehead and disappears in his hair, darker now with wetness.

"Don't fight it," Hux whispers, fascinated - and irritated at once that he can't pinpoint what about this fascinates him so much. Is it the satisfaction of watching Ren slowly lose the battle against himself or something deeper, more feral - feeling someone's life flow through his hand? "Don't find it, I've got you."

This - the words, or something Ren saw on his face - has Ren suddenly hard in Hux's hand, straining and desperate, his mouth finally falling open to gasp on air that can't get in. A violent shudder runs through his body and he tilts his hips up, eyes squeezing shut in something like shame.

"You didn't think you would be into this," Hux guesses, and croons when Ren tries to turn his face away from him. He would flush if he wasn't already so red, the skin under his eyes dotted with burst capillaries. 

"No need to be ashamed," Hux grins, pulling away to drag just his fingertips along Ren's length and letting go of Ren's throat for another too brief second before his grip his back, unforgiving. Ren squirms under his hands, nearly trashes this time. He will, the next. 

"If it helps, I don't think it's the lack of air that does it for you," Hux muses. He's glad Ren doesn't see him now because he can keep his tone calm but he can't do anything about the hungry shine of his eyes as he observes his handiwork. "It's the challenge, isn't it? The need to endure. And the knowledge that in the end, you will lose."

Ren can't nod even if he tries, and can't exactly shake his head either, and yet it seems to Hux that he attempts to. Hux leans down, abandoning Ren's cock to speak into his ear:

"Or it's like this - it's not the choking you like. It's the fact that it's _my_ hand around your throat. You get off on that I could kill you."

It won't be long now. Ren's lips, white with spit foam at the corners, are trembling. The spasms of his upper body grow weaker, his head loses any support he was able to muster and hangs limp off the bed. He's blinking now, a bewildered frown on his twitching eyebrows as if he can't believe what tricks his oxygen-depraved brain is playing on his vision. His cock is a hard line under the tight fabric of his trousers, a darker patch of dampness covering the tip. In any moment now,  he will either pass out or throw Hux off.

"Maybe sometimes we could try something more sophisticated," Hux keeps whispering. "I could tie you up, with a loop of rope around your neck and another under your knees. You know you're not exactly flexible like that - all that strength and mass has some drawbacks. But you'd have to keep your knees as close to your shoulders as you can. Exposed. Helpless. And I could do anything to you - fuck you, plug your arse with my come still in you, spank you raw - and if you only as much as twitched - and you would - the noose around your throat would tighten. How little breath do you think you'd have before I'd let you come?"

Ren lets out a tiny rattling sound - where in his body he saved breath for that is a mystery - and then both of his arms shoot up, gripping Hux's forearm so hard that Hux is certain Ren's going to break his bones. His heart gives an odd kick and he watches it like a ship wreck happening in vicious slow motion - this is it, this is the moment when Ren breaks, when he throws Hux off in order to breathe, proving how pitiable his self-control is, proving Hux's _point_ –

–and Ren, Hux's arm in a death-grip, presses Hux's hand harder against his own throat.

"Stop! Let go!" Hux shouts. The words are out before he's aware he speaks, and he snatches his hand back as soon as he can. It _hurts_ , the little bones in his palm and his cramping fingers, and he cradles his hand against his chest and watches as Ren's throat convulses on free air and the big body curls onto its side, coughing and spitting and breathing in frantic, uncoordinated gasps.

The last few minutes - the whole fucked up evening - replay themselves before Hux's eyes and his stomach lurches. He nearly gags, clammy cold spreading through his abdomen and riding up his chest on the wave of bile. He moves to scramble away from Ren, for a moment overcome with the urge to run, to forget–

No. He's already been weak, now it's time to save what he can. The Emperor never runs, never hides. He fucked up. He has to make it right.

And - Kylo needs him.

Hux knows that once, the first reason would have mattered more. It doesn't now.

"I am sorry." If Kylo has heard that over his coughing and wheezing, he doesn't react. Hux gathers himself, forces his legs to walk straight and sure, brings a glass of water from the 'fresher. Helps to hold Kylo's head up while he drinks. Kylo sips on the water slowly, wincing every time he has to swallow. Hux reduces the light to twenty percent, nestles the covers around Ren's sweat-damp and shivering cold body, rests his fingers like a question on the overstrained muscles on the nape of Ren's neck, rigid with dull pain. When Ren leans into the touch, Hux shouldn't feel surprised but he does. His subconscious pleads guilty. There is a smattering of marks around the base of Ren's throat, dark, fingertip-shaped bruises that should make him feel possessive. Hux never had a problem appreciating the proof of Ren's devotion on his own skin, he'd _liked_ to mark his property as long as it was impermanent, and Kylo was constantly asking for more. Now the guilt only screams louder.   

And Kylo - it doesn't help that Kylo is curled around Hux's shins, letting himself be massaged and his arousal a flagged, forgotten thing, and is watching Hux with spurned accusation in his dark eyes.

"I didn't tell you to stop," he rasps out eventually, words rattling through the abused throat.

"You'd never have," Hux sighs. That's the problem with Kylo, and it never was really a problem until now. They don't use safewords, confident enough that stop means stop. Hux never imagined that he would be the first to use it.

"I would've borne it–" Kylo insists, and his eyes say _I was in control, I could pass the test._

"I wouldn't," Hux says, silencing Ren with surprise at the admission. "I wasn't... I am sorry."

It's twice as much sorries that ever Ren heard from Hux and that says something.

"I don't understand," Kylo whispers.

Hux thinks he doesn't either, not really, and is vaguely aware that if he tries to dissect and rationalise this he's going to be sick on his own bed.

"You wanted me to learn self-control," Kylo offers when no explanations are forthcoming.

"I did say that," Hux agrees. "And in the beginning I might've fooled even myself. But half-way through I didn't want that any more. I didn't want you to learn, I wanted you to suffer, to fail, to prove me right."

By all means, Kylo should be removing himself from Hux's touch now. But he waits, oddly quiet. No judgment. Just curiosity.

"I said I was going to show you fear," Hux continues and Kylo nods, short and aborted movement, wary of jostling his throat too much.

"That's where I made a mistake," Hux explains, forcing the words out like his own personal punishment. "Choking doesn't make you feel fear. Losing consciousness doesn't scare you." The man has been through too much, he'd killed his old self in a way that wasn't entirely metaphorical, Hux suspects that even death itself isn't enough to scare Kylo Ren.

"The only way you'd learn fear would making you fear _me_. And I didn't want that. I never will."

Ren finally slips from under Hux's hand and Hux closes his eyes, bracing himself for the loss. When a pair of arms wraps around his shoulders, the absurdity of it nearly shatters him. Kylo Ren, comforting him.

"I was angry." This admission hurts Hux's pride the most. He knows himself. He should've never touched Kylo while he was still angry. He should've controlled himself better.

"I made you," Kylo shrugs. His hair tickles Hux's closed eyelids. "Hux, you're not a machine."

 _Am I not?_ How easier everything would be. But right now Hux feels like a piece of junk tech, scraped together from mismatched parts. His gears still grate against each other.

"There was something," he says into the comforting scent of Ren's hair. Shampoo, talc, sweat. Home.

"Something about that man - what made you attack him. I was too angry to notice. Tell me about him."

 

 


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains mentions of homophobia, mentions of child abuse, domestic violence, incest, and rape of a minor. Nothing of it happens to the main characters, but be warned.

This is nice, Hux thinks. Shouldn't feel like that but it is. He hadn't realised how tired he was, by the negotiations, by the constant vigilance necessary in dealing with the slimy guilds, by the extra drama that Ren has thrown in today. The power structure in this sector is a hard nut to crack, a cluster of  familial ties and bribe-fed loyalties. Chaotic, wasteful, decaying system. It reminds him of the Republic and its corrupt, decadent ways. About time the Empire took control over these planets and established some order.

Politics is something Hux excels at but even he'd been exhausted lately. There is only a few officials trusted enough that he can delegate work on them without second thoughts. The Empire is growing and stabilising and Hux knows he has to adapt. He should put a buffer between himself and the influx of work, distribute the responsibility, create a chain of command that he could rely on, that would take care of business without him needing to oversee every detail.

But, and Hux knows this, at his core he's a solid knot of trust issues clinging to a hard exoskeleton of control issues and changing that... well. Even the Galaxy bowed to him first.

Now, though, he can pretend that he's indulging in a well-deserved rest. The viewport in the Emperor's quarters on the flagship is filling the bedroom with the reddish light of the bigger star in the binary system they're currently orbiting. Ren's head is in his lap and his hair is like cool water between his fingers as he runs them through the dark locks, over and over.  

"Tell me what it was inside the guild-master's head that it made you throw him across the room."

Kylo stirs. So he wasn't hypnotised. Sometimes it seems like the Knight has only two modes: the 'safety off' one, like a grenade with the pin pulled, and then the catatonic one: lax-limbed, heavy and warm like a glass of nectarwine. The second one is usually the well-fucked one, though recently Hux has discovered that little less exertion and little more affection can do the trick just fine.

"You only just stopped being angry," Kylo mutters into his thigh.

"I'm always angry," Hux corrects him, a little too late realising he's said that aloud. It's true, though. Beneath the impressive crust of self-control is a steadily burning magma of anger: at the suffering of Exiles in the Unknown Regions, at the incompetency of the former Republic, and the slow progress of establishing order in the Galaxy. Contentment is complacency; anger is a propelling force. Hux is an anger-driven man. He just never lets it control him. Almost never.

"I don't want to make you more angry, then."

Hux taps a finger against Kylo's temple. "It was important to you. Tell me."

Kylo turns onto his stomach, folds his arms in front of him and rests his chin on his forearms. Hux takes the hint and starts to knead lightly the tight muscles along Kylo's spine. He can admit to himself that he likes this. There's so much of Kylo, of his broad back, of his ample strength, and it's all his.

"He was extremely loud," Kylo begins, a bit defensively. "I got used to people in the Imperial court being aware of me but this... this man never even heard of shielding."

"Scanning for potential threats _is_ your job," Hux reminds him. It was what happened after that crossed the line.

"He kept thinking how he could worm his way into the Imperial court," Kylo continues.

"His ambition is what made him open negotiations with us," Hux says dryly. He already knew what he was dealing with.

"He has a daughter," Kylo says next, out of the blue. And yet, it's beginning to make perfect sense. Hux could laugh. Hells, he'll probably laugh over it later.

"Twenty-one standard year," Kylo drones on. "He's planning on offering her to you as a concubine."

Hux can't help it - he has to laugh now. He masks it as a snort. "I get it that the word about my preferences hasn't reached this sector yet."

Kylo doesn't join on the mirth. The amber of his eyes is contemplative and sad.

"It's more of a secret that you'd think," he says. "People in the Empire usually think you don't have a preference. Even as a General, you've been married to the First Order. Now, the Empire is your spouse. Out of your peers, who might remember your flings at the Academy, half of them is absolutely loyal to you and the other half is dead."

Hux frowns at the odd phrasing. "Secret? I don't keep my inclination a secret. It's nothing that could besmirch my reputation - by stars, since when it's–"

"It is here," Kylo interrupts him. "In this society, it's illegal."

"I am half surprised that they even have laws by which they're abiding," Hux snorts again.

"The daughter - he caught her kissing a girl when she was thirteen," Kylo says darkly. "Been abusing her ever since. Trying to beat the _deviation_ out of her." He spits out the word, face contorted with remembered fury.

Well. Hux briefly wonders if Kylo was ever... inclined towards someone while he was still Ben Solo, still training to be a Jedi and forbidden any attachments. Better not to ask. Ben Solo is dead and buried. Kylo doesn't mourn him.

"This is hardly the first offer of marriage that's ever came my way," Hux says instead, intentionally dismissive.

"I bet you've never been offered a girl who's been raped multiple times to be made into a proper _marriage material_ ," Kylo grits out bitterly. "He kept picturing her, heavy with your child, with the promise of privilege for him, and gloating at the knowledge that _he_ had her _first_ –"

The half-empty glass of water on the nightstand jumps and clatters. Hux shoots out his hand without thinking and catches it just in time to prevent it from shattering on the floor.

"Sorry," Kylo buries his face in his arms. "Nice reflexes," he offers, voice muffled by his embarrassment.

"They tend to develop around you," Hux plays it off. He has more pressing things to think about.

"About the girl–" he begins, and immediately Kylo tenses. Hux sighs inwardly. But first things first.

"You know LiSai Vakra?"

"The Chief Justice?" Kylo lifts his head. Hux nods. Vakra is one of his favourites: hard-working, loyal, zealous even, devoted to the cause. Made it to the top at the impressive age of thirty-two.

"She mentioned to me that she'd like to find a nice girl and start a family but that she doesn't want to abandon her place at the Supreme Court just yet," Hux thinks aloud.

Kylo thinks silently but just as quickly. Some of the tension leaves him, and a corner of his mouth quirks.

"Emperor Hux, the matchmaker."

"Vakra is a decent woman," Hux says. "It could work out."

"She's fair-minded," Kylo contemplates. "I wonder what she'd do if she found out about the father."

"Let's say that she wouldn't make a fuss when I disposed of him later in a staged trial," Hux deadpans and Kylo actually laughs this time. Good. Now to the important thing.

"You know that the idea of me marrying for political reasons is laughable," Hux begins, quiet but firm. Like on cue, that sad look in Kylo's eyes is back.

"You will need an heir - eventually," he points out.

"Nonsense," Hux says - sharper, than he should. He's had enough of his childhood, he has no intention to go through anyone else's. "When the time comes, I will choose my successor among the best suited for the task, and groom them for their duties myself. I want this Empire to thrive, not to devolve into some hereditary monarchy."

"Some people care a lot for families," Kylo says, eyes fixed somewhere out of the viewport. "Family names. Lineages. Predispositions."

Hux desperately thinks of a way to dance out of this landmine field. "If I had to choose an heir based on their genes, my best pick would be Phasma's firstborn," he chuckles.

Kylo immediately groans. "That baby is vicious. She's only got four teeth and already tried to bite my finger off."

"Exactly," Hux agrees, and laughs at Kylo's glare.

This silly jealous boy. Hux should be irked. Ren's jealousy is inconvenient, from the reasonable point of view. He's the Emperor's vassal, a sworn servant. But instead, Hux is oddly pleased. What had started long ago as an arrangement meant to keep Ren on a short leash while giving him the outlet he needed - with Hux pretending he'd been pragmatically enduring it for everyone's sake but his own - had since developed into something almost resembling a relationship. More often than not Kylo spends the night, more often than not Hux wakes up enveloped in warm limbs and with sweet-scented hair tickling his nose. But they're not in the open, and if anyone knows, they're smart enough not to breathe a word.

Hux shakes his head and stretches his arms, stiff a bit from the long talk in the same position. He's not used to idle rest. Kylo's eyes follow the movement automatically, as he's still deep in his thoughts - when suddenly, he frowns and sits up, catching Hux's hand and rolling up the sleeve.

"How did this happen?" He traces the dark circular bruises spanning the entire girth of Hux's forearm. "Who hurt you?"

Hux quirks an amused eyebrow. "You did - when you grabbed my hand to choke yourself with it," he points out. "I get it that you've been half out of your mind by then but–"

"That's horrible," Ren breathes - as if he wasn't regularly moaning with pleasure at getting marked by Hux. Maybe in his head, those two things are incomparable. "I'd never - I didn't mean–"

"Come off it," Hux scoffs. "I'm not made of glass." He knows that he is, though, a little. His complexion betrays every broken capillary with a garish coloured mark, his skin is paper-thin, his bones delicate. He's not without strength, his keeps himself fit and agile, but he just bruises easily. That's all. But now Ren stares with fascination at the marks he left, stretching his fingers to fit them and marvelling at the fact that his fingers can close around Hux's forearm and even overlap a bit.

"So fragile," he whispers, as if to himself, and Hux can see the gears in that silly head turning and slotting into the inevitable - and stupid - conclusion.

"I'll never stop guarding you," Kylo says solemnly. "Nothing will get to you through me."

"That is your job," Hux drawls, "but for the record, I can take care of myself."

Ren shoots him a dubious look. "How long is it since you've seen a fight? On the Academy?" He peppers the porcelain-smooth skin of Hux's knuckles with little kisses. "And schoolyard scuffles are hardly a life or death situation, anyway."

"Clearly you've never been at the Academy," Hux retorts, but Kylo doesn't listen. Probably tickled that he'd found a proof of his usefulness. As if he needed an excuse to justify his presence at Hux's side. Hux corrects himself: of course Kylo needs it, the excuse of duty. It's not like they are...

"I read your files when I was appointed to the Finalizer, you know. You've never seen battle outside simulation."

"Those are very advanced simulations," Hux points out.

"Not the real thing," Kylo says, all smug superiority. "You can't simulate the slickness of blood on your hands, the stench of death in your nose... all the unpredictable factors. The real fight is dirty, and personal. You wouldn't stand a chance."

Hux should've known better. He knows that this is just Kylo fishing for reassurance. But damn him, Kylo was right when he said Hux was not a machine. Right now, the Emperor can feel his eyes narrowing.

"Since you are so very sure of yourself, Master of the Knights of Ren, may I propose a bet?"

Kylo shifts his body closer to him, practically plastering himself against Hux, just to make a point of how taller, broader, heavier he is. "You, against me? Propose away, Emperor."

Hux refuses to give Ren the satisfaction of bristling. He regards him cooly, with a raised eyebrow. "Sparring is boring. Let's play a game of hunt and catch. Sounds good?"

"Where?"

"We are expected on Naboo in three standard weeks. Is that enough of a real terrain for you? The next round will be in the simulator, a rematch."

Ren's eyes are sparkling. "Are you giving me home ground advantage?"

Hardly, Hux thinks. Ren spent only a short time on Naboo as a child and then visited just a few times during the year since Naboo fell under the Imperial rule along with the rest of the former Republic. But Hux knows it has a mild climate, nothing overly freezing or hot or too humid, so their respective weaknesses won't play into anyone's advantage.

Aloud he says: "Why not? After all, I read your files. You've, in turn, never run through a simulation. It's only fair."

Ren smirks. "Why do I have the feeling that it would be the first time you ever played fair, your Majesty?"

"All is fair in war."

"And the prize for the winner?"

Hux rolls his eyes: "The winner gets the loser, obviously. Anything he pleases, for the day."

That gives Ren pause. He blinks and frowns at Hux, suddenly unsure. He's clearly re-calculating his odds. He knows the Emperor would never offer something like this if he wasn't certain of his own victory.

They never switch. Hux lets his thoughts stray that way for a moment, but they recoil after having just dipped their toes in the unfamiliar waters. He's not sure if he would submit to Kylo, even if he lost. If he could. A part of him - that he tries to silence before Kylo picks on it - toys with the idea. Teases it like a wild animal through the bars of its cage. But it doesn't matter, the calm and superior part of Hux's brain assures him. He won't lose.

"I'm already yours," Kylo points out at last.

"There are many things I haven't done to you yet," Hux grins wickedly. He has plans for Kylo.  

And then Kylo smiles, sudden and bright. "I like that."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for all the typos. Had a shit of a week and had to just chunk this chapter out to make it better.


	4. IV

Hux is eerily calm as he half-crouches on the forest floor, the dirt damp and supple under the fingers of his gloved hand. The sun is low, trailing long shadows through the woods and adding a confusing mesh to the pattern of the vertical lines of trees. Every smooth-skinned, dry leaf beneath Hux's feet casts a larger-than-life shadow, dappling the ground in flecks of black and highly reflective, silvery brown. It's too much contrast, the glare blinding out details, noticing any footprints on such a ground is impossible. Hux makes a mental note to commission better graphics for the battle simulation programs. Surface rendering algorithms can approach reality only so much. Right now, they pale in comparison with the real thing.

The echo of a faint laughter in Hux's head is just that: a memory. Not a real sensory input - Ren isn't such a fool as to lose this game to gloating - and not a Force-thought. At least Hux hopes so.

He tears his gaze from the useless, silent ground and focuses higher. A twig on a low bush: recently broken. A spider's web torn and hanging limp from the low arch of two crossing branches, the fly inside still alive, one wing flapping, though the small creature couldn't be the offender who tore down the entire web. Someone tall and heavy had come this way, and not too long ago, otherwise the fly would be devoured by now.

Instantly, Hux doesn't trust this trail. It's too obvious, either a decoy or a lure. These are common strategies even in the sterile environment of war rooms, and this is no pathetic and fumbling Resistance unit hunted down through the diagrams on a holoscreen. This man he's hunting is a predator, a killer, and he hunts him in turn.

The wet rainforest they have been airdropped to stretches on miles in every direction from the little elevation Hux is currently trying to scout out, a solid carpet of glossy-leafed trees, threaded with countless streams and streaked with swamps. The small dry hillock is a natural advantage point and as such he's been, in all likelihood, already claimed by Ren.  

So far, Hux's strategy had been keeping close to cover, listening, moving at irregular intervals and using the one quality he is sure he has more of than his hunter-slash-prey: patience. But Hux also knows that this strategy is exactly what Ren will anticipate.

The only thing that plays directly into Hux's hand is the fact that he is good at moving silently by nature - whereas Ren, with his heavy stomping gait, must concentrate on keeping his stealth.

Where the forest floor wouldn't betray any information, the maze of richly spreading trees could turn out more talkative. Hux can sometimes catch sight of a small bird or a swamp-native reptavian, flitting from branch to branch. Nuna birds scramble between the roots. There's been a twirrl call, shrilling high in the sky, not so long ago. Forest creatures can do the scouting job for Hux; they tend to warn each other when there's an unfamiliar being approaching, they grow unnaturally silent when the danger is close.

Hopefully Ren can't manipulate the collective senses of wildlife. Or can he? He can trick humans into not noticing him but what about non-sentient beings - birds, lizards - insects? Hux hopes he can't. He pushes an errant strand of his bright hair back under the hem of his dark grey knit cap and tightens his hold on his blaster. Ren can be anywhere.

Hux creeps slowly along a sluggish, muddy rill - more a trickle of murky water, at times disappearing beneath the tree roots. Hux has a vague recollection that forest brooks should gurgle merrily; here all sound of water is muffled by soft cakes of moss and fallen leaves, sodden and reeking of rot. Down the hill, there are the swamps. To his left, uphill, the wood grows sparser, dry rock outcroppings littering the hillock like bones protruding from a decaying carcass. A prickly feeling at the base of his skull tells Hux he might be getting close to his prey.

Or close to a trap. There's no way to tell.

Again, Hux tries to peer above the bush providing him cover without being seen. Concentrates on either side of the obvious trail. The swamps - no, ground too muddy, squelching with every step - that windthrow, dead roots caked with dry mud exposed to the sky - no, a nuna bird has just hopped in there, those birds are stupid but not that stupid - then that rock outcropping, nothing there - and then there's that shadow under...

Hux stops and takes a mental step back. And then he grins.

The anticipation is filling the entire forest, he can't look anywhere without feeling something like a cross-breed between dread and thrill, and yet that rocky nook a little way uphill appears entirely harmless. Hux's gaze passed over it and dismissed it already twice - that's when he noticed. It's like an oiled patch of fabric under water spray, remaining dry even as the rest is dripping wet. The rock repulses Hux's attention, insisting on the conviction that nothing could be hiding in such an insignificant place.

Ren has overshot his disguise trick there. For about a mile.      

And just because even that could be a double-bluff, Hux backs away and creeps around the hillock in a wide circle, until he can get a look from another angle.

It should be impossible to sneak upon a Force-user. And yet, there he is: a glimpse of a loose camouflage shirt and a stray fleck of sunlight filtered through the leaves sliding over the dark lock falling into Ren's forehead, as he's crouching behind a rock, turning his head in a slow semicircle. Eyes closed. Trying to sense Hux out through the Force. His first mistake: old-fashioned running around and using your own eyes is still faster.  

Hux braces his blaster on his forearm to steady it and takes a careful aim. The gun is locked on stun but Hux made sure that the charge could stun a bantha. Hux clears his mind, exhales, and pull the trigger.

The bolt freezes in the air half-way between him and Ren and Hux realises his own mistake. It is, indeed, impossible to sneak upon a Force-user. And now, he has given away his position.

Ren rises to his full height, shit-eating grin on his dirt-smudged face, and deflects the bolt into a nearby tree with a carefree flick of his one hand. The gesture still waves through the air when Hux fires another shot. Surely the Force needs at least a little reaction time.

The lightsaber is out and activated so quickly that the electric thrum of plasma ignition gets swallowed by the cracking, hissing sound of the tree being split in half by the first shot. The second - and the third, and the fourth - shots bounce off the blade, neither coming even close to its target, and Hux has to dodge the fifth that ricochets right back at him.

Kylo's face is laughing. He shots out his free arm, fingers closing on empty air, and pulls on an invisible rope. Hux doesn't wait for whatever is about to happen. He ducks and rolls, rising promptly to his feet just enough distance away from his earlier spot where now a big dead branch has fallen off the tree he'd been standing under, exploding in a cloud of splinters and dust.

"Nice try," he calls out, cheeky, and dances downhill, short leaps from one tree trunk to another. He keeps his eyes on Ren and lets his feet find their way through the roots and moss purely on muscle memory - he'd stalked this way up before, testing every step.

The laughter and the crackling buzz of the lightsaber follow him through the brushwood, all the way to a small grassy clearing. The ground here is mostly dry and free of anything that Ren could Force-throw at him. Good.

"Losing your breath, your Majesty?" Ren calls when he emerges on the edge of the clearing. "I'll catch you sooner than later, you know. You can't outrun me."

Hux damn well knows that - Ren's extra inches are all in his legs.

Hux throws his blaster away before Ren gets the idea to Force-wrench it out of his hand and break his trigger finger in the process. Then he plants his feet wider, bends his knees a little, brings forth his arms, hands balled into fists - the opening stance of the first Echani form.

"To catch me, you'll have to get your hands on me first," he taunts back.

Ren deactivates his lightsaber and tosses it on the ground in a show of chivalry. He crosses the few metres of grass between them in a couple of unhurried strides, pulling off his shirt as he goes. The old scar on his right shoulder and the bowcaster wound in his side have healed into webbings of silvery tissue. They glint in the low sun like a grievous battle tattoos but don't restrict his arm and upper body movements. He stops just the right distance from Hux, flexing his fingers and dropping into a stance mirroring Hux's.

If Hux is surprised that Ren knows anything about the Echani martial art, he doesn't show it. The style was taught routinely among the old Galactic Empire elite units and was passed down onto the officers of the First Order, another homage to the world they'd lost. It makes no use of Force techniques, though there's no guarantee that Ren won't cheat some into his moves.

The smugness radiating from Ren's entire form doesn't go away. Echani is for purity, an art of turning fight into communication, ritualised, cleansed of emotions, and following a rigid etiquette. _How very like you_ , Ren's smirk is saying, and Hux knows that even a superior fighting prowess won't help him in the long run: Anything Ren might be lacking in technique, he'll make up for it with his sheer strength and lightning-fast reflexes. Echani turns one's body into a weapon, and Ren's body _is_ stronger than Hux's.    

Which is why, when Ren charges, Hux drops one knee almost to the ground, pushes himself with his other foot into a backwards slide, uses the extra moment of Ren's overbalanced surprise to land a hard upward punch into his jaw and follows with an open-palmed strike from either side of Ren's neck, before he slithers from under stumbling figure and rises again, this time behind Ren.

A hard kick into Ren's side, just under his ribs, before he can finish his turn, and Ren's fingers only briefly graze the seam of his trouser leg before Hux draws out of his reach, sharp and slippery like an eel.

His mind is quicksilver. He can feel the waves of surprise, of anger, the bewildered probing. Hux bends the surface of his thoughts under the attack like a plastic film: it yields but doesn't break, diverting the force behind the spike to the side, until it slides off, harmless.

"You're shielding," Ren grits out, winded more by this realisation than by the few hits Hux has landed so far. "Where did you learn how to do that?"

"Same place I learned this," Hux throws back, charging again. This time, Ren is faster to react but he's still expecting Echani, or some basic martial art move, and it's only after he yelps under a particularly vicious hit that nearly dislocates his shoulder that his mind finally makes the connection.

"Teräs Käsi," Ren coughs out, spit and a faint pink of blood. "But how?"

 _Steel Hands_ , they called it. Extinct race that created this art of fighting solely to defy the Jedi. And the Sith. Anyone who relies on the Force.

Hux began to learn it when he was still a Lieutenant. Just after he realised that between him and the destined Galactic throne was sitting an old, ugly Force user. In the end, he didn't need to put his skill to use, as Ren has taken care of Snoke for him. But even as Emperor, Hux has never stopped honing this special set of skills. Especially since he'd allowed his throne to be guarded by another unpredictable bunch of Force-users - the Knights of Ren. Oath of fealty is, after all, just what it is: a word.

"The art of Teräs Käsi is about control and mastery of one's self," Hux quotes an old master and adds, mocking: "Which is why you don't know it, of course."

 _When you fight the Jedi, you fight the Force_. The Force-users seem to have unnatural reflexes but it's just the Force showing them things that have yet to happen. They seem to anticipate strikes but it's their Force-enabled mind-reading trick, betraying every intention of their opponent. In order to fight this, one must be fast - faster than a Jedi, faster than thought - and one must learn how to close off their mind.

And Hux - Hux is very fast. Thin, pale, fragile - but extremely fast. Bulk would just hinder him.

_They will try to immobilise you. Trap you in the Force-shackles, hold you in the empty air with the tendrils of the Force bent around their will. You have to be faster than that._

Hux can feel it as he spins through the air, feet barely touching the ground, charging and withdrawing like a dancing dragonsnake. Ren defends himself and even strikes back, never being taught this style but learning by the minute, even lands a few lucky blows - but he keeps wasting his reaction time on trying to subdue Hux with the Force. Invisible fingertips brush the back of Hux's neck, impotent, as he bends sooner than they can close. Invisible nails scratch along his ankle as he twists his foot out of the grasp.

_They will try to attack your mind. Feed you false visions. Override your will. Master your body from within._

Hux's mind is a Twi'lekk ballet dancer, dashing across the stage. Spin and leap, spin and leap, and then extra spin and a half, changing the direction in the last moment. Ren's outstretched hand passes harmlessly through the silk and feathers at the edge of the dancer's skirts, catching nothing.

_They will try to read your mind to anticipate your moves. You have to deceive them. Learn how to think one move and do another._

Hux's body moves disconnected from his mind, hands and feet lashing out and blocking strikes following patterns ingrained along his nerve-paths, written into the hidden places where muscles meet bones. He pictures an uppercut and Ren attempts to block it only to stumble back, reeling from a hard blow to his temple. He recovers quickly, kicking out to sweep Hux's feet from under him, and Hux's mind's eye watches his body withdraw, evading the kick - only to drive both fists into Ren's abdomen in a contradictory move when Ren follows the false defence and loses his balance.

Hux's mind takes a step to the left and launches a blow on Ren's collarbone. Ren's arm jerks up to shield it but he aborts the movement - he's learning - but not quickly enough, and Hux's body flips sideways, his feet delivering a series of merciless kicks into Ren's ribcage, followed with his joined fists hitting the top of Ren's head.

Ren's back hits the ground, hard. His head lolls to the side for a precious moment before his eyes snap back into focus and he attempts to get up. Too late.

Hux has his blaster aimed between Ren's eyes. Not even the Force could stop the bolt from this close. Hux licks the blood off his teeth - Ren did get lucky, a couple of times - and grins.

"Yield," he commands.

Ren's limbs go lax. He lets his head fall back into the grass and closes his eyes. His breathing is laboured and shallow, purple bruises blooming across his ribs.

"So that's why you have such impressive reflexes," he rasps out eventually, remembering the almost-shattered glass of water from the night three weeks ago. He lifts a hand for Hux to take it and help him to his feet. Hux ignores it, getting down to straddle Ren's torso instead, knees on either side of his battered ribs. He leans down and kisses him, hard. Tastes their mixed blood, tang of copper, electric red, and victory.

Ren wraps his hands around him, exhausted and reverent. "You have to teach me that," he breathes.

"Never," Hux says into another kiss, and under the evasive quicksilver of his mind he thinks, _Yes_.  

 

 

 


	5. V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: This is the chapter where this fic earns its rating. No more warning needed.

It's a good thing Kylo can't see himself from behind, Hux thinks with some amusement. The Knight is already smug about his looks as it is, no need to feed his vanity by letting him on the secret how beautiful he can be.

Right now, Hux is certain he's never seen anything more beautiful: the long and glistening line of Kylo's back, the sweeping arch of shoulders, trembling with the strain of keeping him up for so long. His shoulder blades are wide and sharp like wings of a fallen angel, the whole expanse of back clean and perfect an ivory paper dotted with dark birth marks, scattered and coalescing like words in a poem.

 _"Bending your bow alongside mine in battle..."_ Hux whispers to himself a verse from an old warrior poem and folds his body over Ren's, runs his hands up his sides, lays his chin into the dip between neck and shoulder, soaking up the supple scent and warmth. Looking down over Ren's shoulder, he briefly surveys his progress.

"The draft budget for the Imperial Academy comes in four copies, Ren."

Ren huffs out in frustration at the calm remark, intoned evenly next to his ear, and dutifully reloads the previous page to check the proper box on the datapad screen. The stylus in his hand shakes so badly that he misses the first two attempts. A drop of sweat falls down from the bridge of Ren's nose and lands on the screen, spreading on the adhesive surface like a thin amoeba, twinkling with every colour of the spectrum. Hux _tsk_ s into his ear and leans back before Ren's elbows can buckle under him.

"Hux," comes the whine at the loss of contact. Or at the prolonged frustration.

"You're doing so well," Hux soothes him, hands falling back into their now familiar grip on Ren's waist. He pulls his hips back a little bit, wriggles them a little bit, pushes back into the exquisite, quivering heat. Slowly, enjoying the sensation of being buried to the hilt inside a warm, willing body. He could stay like this, just nestled inside Ren, without any pressing need to come, for hours.

"Just three more of this stack of financial reports and then that stack of petitions and then I'll give you what you want."

Hux lets his hand wander down the crease of Ren's groin and slips one teasing finger between the steel rings of a cock cage, caressing the soft flesh caught inside. A shudder ripples through Ren's body and a little hiss escapes his lips at the pinch of unforgiving steel to his cock when it valiantly attempts to harden.

"You know how the saying goes - no pain, no gain," Hux tells him and gives just one, very shallow, motivational thrust.

Kylo eyes the aforementioned stack of files and whimpers.

 

*

The day after the forest hunt began with Kylo showing up like a bat from hell, wrapped in a particularly odious heavy coat, in the Emperor's quarters in the Imperial summer residence on Naboo just after sunrise. The Knight has mostly recovered from having his arse kicked so spectacularly the day before and his eyes sparkled with excitement at the prospect that he was about to be collected as a prize, to fulfil every whim of the Emperor for the whole day. His face under the black hood shone with eager anticipation. Half smug, half coy grin playing on his lips, Kylo let the coat fall to the floor in the doorway to Hux's bedroom.

Amidst the still warm pillows, Hux sniggered. Underneath the coat, Kylo wore nothing but the smirk. And a half hard erection.

"That's distasteful, Ren," Hux remarked and - since sleep was a forgone option by now - got up. Then he went about his morning routines in an orderly and unhurried manner, put on a simple shirt and clean-cut trousers, slicked back his hair - all the time studiously ignoring the sight of his Knight who stood in the doorway, looking lost and wilting like a plucked flower.

"I thought you said–"

"What I said," Hux emerged from the adjacent dining room with a cup of steaming caf and a couple of biscuits on a tray and put it on a small table in the parlour, "was 'The winner gets the loser.' It frankly astounds me, the nerve of you, making any assumptions whatsoever. Especially such lewd assumptions."

Hux slowly looked Ren over and pursed his lips in disgust. The Knight was mostly soft by now, unsure of his welcome. Good.

"Really, one would think I caught some wild, feral thing in the forest yesterday. No manners at all."

Ren grinned again. Clearly still thinking that this was a game. "You could teach me some manners," he offered.

Hux shook his head in exaggerated disappointment. Then he crossed the room and retrieved a plain little box from the top drawer of the desk that occupied the entire corner of the room, imposing, spacious, and already overflowing with the previous day's worth of work.

"Wild things caught in the forest belong in a cage," Hux said mercilessly and opened the box to retrieve the chastity device, nestled in a pearl-coloured velvet and gleaming in the morning light with a cold, hard, geometric perfection.

"Don't get hard," Hux warned Ren when he saw the expression on his face. The flicker of hunger in those amber eyes, the way he licked his lips. "Your cock is mine today, and if it doesn't fit, I'll put ice to it, don't think I won't."

He worked quickly, tightening the black leather belt around Ren's hips, letting there be just enough give for Ren to be able moving, walking, bending over. He's had this thing custom-made for some time, and it fit perfectly. Ren's cock was silk-smooth and wool-soft in the confines of the cage, pink with arousal but unable to act on it. There was no key. Hux had opted for the fingerprint-locked latch. It clicked shut with a melodious _clank_ , and even if Ren gave in to the temptation, it wouldn't open for him. Well, he could always try and wrestle it off with the Force, but Hux knew he wouldn't.

Ren was watching him with eyes like those dark spaces between stars when Hux got up again. Who knew what he found more arousing: the promise of the denial, or the fact that Hux had taken care of the struggle for him, giving him no option but to endure. Or maybe it was the fact that his arousal couldn't manifest physically and all that was left to him was feeling it contained within, coursing through his veins with no outlet, corroding his self-control like embers smouldering under the ashes after a forest fire.

"What will you do with me now?" he asked, low and pliant.

Hux turned his head to hide the glee of his smirk. "I am going to take a breakfast," he said. "An actual, uninterrupted breakfast, without any messages or demands for my attention." He sighed in delight. "It's a pleasure that comes so rarely these days... And do you know why I'll be able to do so?"

Ren shook his head even as apprehension dawned in his eyes.

"Because you're going to take care of my morning duties," Hux confirmed his suspicions. "I already pre-sorted it for you yesterday, and I trust you possess the basic cognitive skills to complete the task on your own."

"You planned this," Ren sighed, his whole demeanour slumping along with his shoulders.

"I did." Hux caressed his face, just once. "You lost, and I will use you as I see fit."

Under any other circumstances, this particular sentence would have a very distinct effect on Ren, but now the Knight was sizing up the desk, half buried under stacks of datasheets and crystal library folders, with a miserable pout on his lips.

"If you want to be coming anytime today, I suggest you get started," Hux patted his bare hip and went to lounge comfortably on the sofa by the small table with his breakfast. Ren spared him one mournful glance and then, with a tremendous sigh, stomped over to the desk.

"Are you completely out of your mind?"

"What?" Ren stopped, just about to walk around the desk to drop on the - very comfortable - leather chair positioned behind it.

"Your bare arse sweating into the chair where I sit in my formal day attire when I work? That's disgusting," Hux waved him off the chair. "Since it was your idea to come prancing into my rooms with no sensible clothes on, you're going to bear the consequences. Stay where you are. If it's uncomfortable, may it motivate you to work faster."

Ren looked over his shoulder at Hux, then back at the table. And then, exaggeratedly slowly, he bent over the front of the desk, leaning on his elbows, and pulled the first datasheet in front of him.  

Yes, Hux decided, taking a satisfied sip of caf. That was a very nice view to have at breakfast.

 

*

 

That was in the morning.

The sun has shifted on the sky since then, the light coming through the big latticed windows gradually losing its morning flush and turning into pale gold. For the first time in many months, Hux has really enjoyed his morning. Not that he would loathe his work, no. He liked to keep track of the political, financial, logistical pulses that kept his Empire alive and thrumming. He liked the feeling of reward the work could bring, those little peaks of accomplishments every time he checked another item off the list. But lately, it's been getting... dull. Repetitive. Perhaps, it's been getting a bit too much.

Hux finished his breakfast and after a while he decided that he was no longer content with simply lounging and lazily palming himself to the enticing sight of Ren's exposed arse. It was an admirable specimen, Hux thought, rounded and firm, muscular and supple in just the right places. Ren, aware of the only available method of persuasion left to him, kept making the sight truly inspiring: as he worked painstakingly through the pile of documents, he kept shifting the weight of his feet, arching his lower back every once in a while - ostensibly to relieve the strain of this position - and swaying his hips in slow circles. Well, Hux thought, when inspiration comes, what can one do than to pursue it?

He got up and came to stand just to the side of Ren, leaning over his shoulder and careful not to touch more than a thin strip of skin along Ren's side. Even that small contact had Ren's body gravitate to him like a metal splinter in the magnetic field and Hux had to plant a hand between his shoulder blades, pushing him uncompromisingly back into the proper stance.

"What do you want me to do with these?" Ren kept his eyes down and tapped the stylus on the currently opened document - a surveillance report from an Imperial outpost on the far end of the Outer Rim, one of the nods of the newly built safety network meant to catch any surviving lone wolves of the scattered Resistance. He was apparently determined to get this over with as soon as possible. Hux decided to up the ante a little.

"Go over them and flag any that had reported any activity in the past week," he instructed Ren as he made a brief detour back to the sofa to retrieve a flat cushion and toss it on the floor between Ren's bare feet. And then he dropped to kneel on it, comfortably.

"I - I would've thought that the Ministry of Defence already saw all this intel and has taken the measures to adapt and react to any new development," Ren continued, admirably collected - save for the initial stutter. Hux smiled to himself. Two could have play that game.

"They did, and they do," he agreed, running his palms up the inside of Ren's thighs, pushing them apart a little. Ren complied readily, even as the new position demanded more of his concentration to maintain. "But there's more in the reports than plain results: look at the numbers _between_ the lines. How many soldiers station that post, and how many incidents they've reported. Whose name comes up most often as the commander in the successful raids. Who's the most effective." Hux breathed onto the soft place where thigh met arse, following the inward curve with the pad of his thumb. Ren smelled nice here: like starblossom soap and frustration. Between his parted thighs, the rings of the cock cage gleamed in the shadow of his body, like a secret taunt.

Above him, there was the sound of a stylus clattering on the wood, and then a gasp. "You - you read all that, ah, every day... someone at the Ministry could do that, too–"

Hux interrupted him. "Another aspect is that this way, I know what they know. And they know that I know."

Ren scrambled to retrieve the stylus and then nearly lost it again when Hux bit him. There was a dull thud of a forehead hitting the polished wood of the desk. "Hux..."

"It's all right," Hux couldn't quite contain the laughter in his voice. "That's why I am the politician."

"That's not what I meant!"

"The reports, Ren," Hux reminded him and licked over the bite, dragging the flat of his tongue over the delicious skin and following the curve of the flesh inside the crack of Ren's arse, flicking the tip just shy of his hole.

And so it went. Hux was scattering wet bites over the supple flesh of Ren's arse while Ren cross-analysed the military reports. Hux sucked long, vicious kisses all around the rim of Ren's twitching hole while Ren digested the highlights of the latest implementations of new agriculture technology on the granary planets. Hux delighted in the taste of the skin just inside Ren, dusky pink, tender and irresistibly responsive, while Ren moaned and attached the Imperial signature to a handful of professoriate decrees.

Ren was so good, and so delicious, and so unable to come even close to release, his cock trapped, stubbornly trying to harden and repeatedly softening again, but never wholly, when the tight pinch of steel reminded it of its confines. Hux couldn't get enough of it.

He got up, the stiffness in his knees only a remote sensation, and left the rapidly and wetly breathing mess of a man on his desk alone only for the brief moment it took him to retrieve a bottle of his favourite, almond-flavoured oil from his bedroom.

"Hux, please, I–" Kylo moaned when the first finger breached him, keening, his coherency long gone. It was amazing that he was still able to hit the right keys on the datapad as he inserted chip after chip, desperately trying to get the work done.

"Yes, you can," Hux assured him, hooking his chin briefly over Ren's shoulder as he worked his fingers in and out of Ren's loosened hole, only a hint of resistance when he added a third. He avoided thrusting too deep, skimming carefully around Ren's prostate. Just playing, indulging himself. Massaging the rim with his thumb as he scissored his fingers inside. He wanted to see how long would Ren last. And then he would make him last longer.

 

*

 

That was the late morning, and now it's nearing noon, and Ren is nearing the end of his tether. To be fair, just the thought of the futile arousal ricocheting through Ren's body and clawing at him from inside is making Hux's determination crumble a little more with every passing minute.

"Pleaseplease _please_ –"

"It's just the petitions now," Hux says, low, encouraging. Runs his fingers through Ren's hair, pulls the loose strands away from his forehead. "Those have been vetted already, you just mark them as read and approved."

Page after page flicks on the datapad screen. Ren's fingers are trembling so badly that Hux suspects that he might be using the Force to tap the buttons. Come to think of it, he hasn't seen the stylus for a while now. Ren has probably snapped in it two. How very like him.

"It's done," Ren gasps, slotting the last chip into its holder and pushing the datapad away from him. "Hux, I'm done, _please_ –"

Hux presses a finger against the latch and it goes off, the whole cage cracking open, the rings parting in the middle and opening like a carnivorous plant. He gently removes it away from Ren, careful not to hurt him, then he unclips the leather belt and lets it slide off.

Ren is hard within two seconds, groaning deep and clamping down on Hux's cock inside him as if wanted nothing more badly than to do that the entire morning. He probably hasn't. He's unable to keep still now, keeps pushing back into Hux's hips, fucking himself on his cock, his orgasm on a hair-trigger. It's been hours, long, delicious hours of the sweetest denial, and Hux takes mercy on him.

He fucks him with deep, hard thrusts, sparing him not an inch of himself. Ren moans and trashes and shouts and screams and comes at the first touch of Hux's fingers on his cock, just a circle of fingers pressing lightly under his glans is all that it takes and Ren is shattering under him, the air around them growing thicker and rich with ozone for a moment as Ren forgets about his powers. There's an ominous crack from under them and Hux distantly notes that if they just broke the desk, he might finally have a good enough reason to have this wooden monstrosity replaced by something more ergonomic. But then he's coming, too, deep inside Kylo, and every thought of furniture is a moot point for a good while after.

"I hate paperwork," Kylo mumbles into his arm, lying on the desk with his arse dangling over the edge, when he catches enough breath to form a coherent sentence. Then he turns his head to shoot pensive look - well, about as pensive as someone who just got their brains fucked out can muster - at Hux.

"You have this much work every day," he states, not really a question.

"Most days," Hux corrects him. "I went hunting yesterday, if you remember."

Ren purses his lips in a little pout. Hux wants to flick it.

"You should have a secretary or something."

Hux snorts. "I have a whole squad of them. This is what gets through them." It's not entirely true. He could filter it better. Trust the others more. He just doesn't like to. Old habits die hard.

"But still–" Kylo seems to be bothered. "There were things you didn't really have to– those decrees, for one–"

"That would be the traditional duty of a consort," Hux says lightly. Waits for the comeback. None is coming.

Ren is sprawled over the desk, sweaty and wrecked, and Hux can _hear_ him thinking despite being as Force-null as they come.

"Come to the bedroom," Hux takes pity on him for the second time that day. "After that morning, there's more than one orgasm in you, and I intend to collect my prize in full."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem Hux is reciting is a war poem, written by the Epicanthix chief Canthar who united many of his people's clans under one banner. 
> 
> __
> 
> _My bow is curved like your slender form,  
>  Bending your bow alongside mine in battle,  
> Facing our foes to save our love and clan.  
> If we do not fight we lose our selves;  
> Enemies burn our deeds and love from this world,  
> And we die in anonymity._
> 
> __
> 
> I just thought that this poem sounded very Kylux to me.


	6. VI

The simulation is half a maze, half a dungeon. The idea behind this particular scenario is to emulate a Resistance base. They're makeshift establishments as the last rebels are always on the run, hunted down one by one, squatting in decrepit, abandoned military sites that date back to the Old Republic and have long ago fallen out of use.

Since Hux was the one to propose the Naboo forest for the first round, he graciously let Kylo choose the simulation scenario. It makes sense that Kylo would choose this: the root of the argument that sparked this bet was Hux's statement that he could fend for himself just fine. Now he's sneaking through the dark corridors of a Resistance base, presumably after having escaped their prison cell where he landed after a highly improbable series of unfortunate coincidences, and Kylo is playing the role of a rogue rebel, guarding this base and set on bringing Hux back to his cell.

As far as foreplays go, Hux thinks with wry amusement, they have had worse.

The fluorescent emergency lights flicker above his head as he creeps along the corridors. The light is not strong enough to quite dispel the gloom in the corners, providing a good shadow for cover as long as Hux keeps close to the wall. The simulation is perfect. As long as he doesn't touch the holoprojection, the duracrete _looks_ solid, crumbling with age, web-like fissures extending from the ceiling. Mould grows in the places where damp had soaked through the cracks. It's very realistic.

It would be so easy, just to step through the wall, to wade through the insubstantial mist of photons to look directly for the only one other solid body in this room, his prey. But something about the brutal vividness of this simulation prevents the mind to try it. Besides, Ren had promised that he wouldn't cheat like that.

Logically, he should be able to hear Ren's footsteps. The projection room they're in - a hall of monstrous dimensions but still an enclosed space - is empty save for the two of them and a sea of frozen light; any sound should echo with devastating intensity. But the simulation program is prepared for that and provides a steady backdrop of sounds typical for the environment: the pulsing hum of unsteady fluorescent lights, the omnipresent _drip-drip-drip_ of water on duracrete, the whistle of wind in the imagined upper levels of the base, exposed to elements... it's enough of a distraction to obscure the footsteps of anyone who moves with the intention not to be heard.

There. A glimpse of a scruffy leather jacket disappearing around a corner. It must be Ren - other people are not a part of the simulation program. Hux sniggers internally when he realises that Ren had even dressed for the part. He looks like a nerf-herder, all washed-out brown and sandy beige, the only thing out of place is the soft, devious gleam of a lightsaber dangling from his belt. Hux crouches, disappearing into the shadows, and crawls over to the opposite wall, the angle now giving him a clear view of his opponent. The game has barely started, there's nothing wrong in getting a bit of fun by observing Ren's attempts at strategy.

The Knight appears to be encountering some problem: he's standing at the crossroads, making a few hesitant steps forward every now and then, frowning at the wall, and retreating back with - what Hux can see from the shadows - an confused look on his face. He's just left a long corridor which continues in a long straight stretch far ahead of him and another narrow and straight corridor runs perpendicularly to him. And Ren's just standing there, narrowed gaze flicking back and forth, as if something bothers him and he can't figure out what it is.

Hux has a hard time to choke back a laugh when he figures it out for Ren. It's the simulation spatial adjustment.

Though the training room they're in is huge, it's not limitless. The imaginary base, projected inside, would occupy much greater space. To ensure that people trapped within the simulation won't walk flat into a physical wall, the simulation makes slight adjustments of the environment around them. Straight corridors bend ever so slightly as you walk through them. Right angles aren't entirely right - they _look_ like that, from a perspective, but that perspective changes with every step you take.

For a human mind, it poses no problem. Eyes can be fooled, the brain doesn't register the slight changes, doesn't even notice that you're running in wide circles when you think you're progressing straight ahead. But Ren... once, Ren told Hux that feeling the Force was a bit like having the sense of magnetic field the sea creatures have. It's not an uniform field, it has cardinal directions, it comes stronger from where people live more densely, strongest from the direction of the Core Worlds, weaker towards the Outer Rim and Unknown Regions. Ren has his own Force-compass in his head, and it's clashing with the perception of his eyes. It's throwing him off.

Again: the access to the Force is proving to be not only Ren's greatest strength but also his greatest weakness.

Then, as if he's arrived to some decision, the Knight starts moving again. After just a token hesitation, Hux follows him.

The Knight walks fast, his soft-soled boots silent on the duraplast floor of the simulation room that to the eyes appears to be stacked together of steel grate squares, their gleam obscured by rust. Ren only slows down when he's approaching an intersection, peeking around the corner before he continues. Sometimes the side rooms, gaping their smashed doorframes into the corridor, attract his attention, and he surveys them with sweeping glance as he walks past. Hux always makes sure to stay low and hidden,  careful not to become even an accidental glimpse at the edge of Ren's peripheral vision.

Though there seems to be a kind of purposefulness to Ren's speed, from the way he hesitates a little at each intersection - before continuing more or less in the same direction - it looks like he doesn't know where he's going. Even Hux didn't know the layout of this maze beforehand: it gets generated randomly when the simulation is activated. But Hux's mind, honed by situations like this, has already taken notice of every turn of the corridors, every junction they crossed, slotting the information together and overlapping the mental maps until they form a complete picture. His visual imagination helps: the algorithm generating the maze is not illogical, it follows basic rules of architecture, there can be no interdimensional loopholes - in this layout of mostly parallel corridors intersected with perpendicular walkways, taking three right turns must get you to the original spot.

Suddenly, Ren swivels abruptly to the right and disappears through the door that hangs askew in its hinges and looks no bigger than belonging to a storage closet.

There should be no way out from that closet. If Ren were to break the rules and try to walk through a wall, it would set off the sensors. The sharp electronic beep isn't coming. Hux senses a trap.

Readying his blaster, Hux edges closer. The main corridor is not wide enough for him to keep in the relative safety of the shadows and to get a clear line of sight inside at the same time. But the broken door - luck is on Hux's side, it isn't blocking the light from the overhead fluorescent tubes trickling lamely into the small room -

-except that there's no room. Instead of rickety rows of shelves or simply a bare duracrete wall with water-resistant paint peeling off it in big rolled up flakes, there's the dim void of another corridor. This unexpected escape route is unlit, its softly thickening darkness drinking up the light falling in from the main corridor. Hux can't make out the length of it, or if it branches out at some point. He thinks he sees something shift in there, deep in the dark. He quickly hides behind the door - and when he next peeks in, it's gone, whatever it was.

The corridor shouldn't be here. It makes no sense in the layout.

Hux makes a split-second decision - forward or back - and then he's running back to the last junction. A turn to the left and then another should lead him to this new passage that Ren had taken and give him even a small head start–

The corridor he enters after the second left turn is a dead end. It doesn't cross with anything.

A pulsing sense of alarm wakes in the back of Hux's mind. He has no idea where Ren is. He could be anywhere, most likely following Hux now when the tables turned, catching him in a convenient dead end...

Hux turns back, senses on alert. The entire length of the corridor he came through is empty, all the way to the junction where he took his last turn. Drip-drip-drip, the water echoes somewhere on his right.

Sneaking along the wall for better cover, Hux thinks he's hearing footsteps nearby. It must be a figment of his imagination, a product of his strung-out nerves, because Ren had moved absolutely soundlessly before. The footsteps draw close and then peter out again, like a taunt.

Hux slithers along the wall, expecting an attack awaiting him just around the corner. With the last metre left, he jumps and ducks and rolls, coming to a halt in a perfect crouch with his blaster aimed at - nothing.

Perhaps Ren hasn't caught up on the glitch in the layout yet. Most likely he isn't even aware that the glitch exists. He probably just saw an unlit corridor and decided to explore it. Hux riffles through the possible explanations in his head as he cautiously makes his way back to the main corridor, the one with the fake storage closet door. Might be worth investigating where it does lead after all. But when Hux rounds the last corner, he hits another dead end.

Before he can fully process this absurdity - there _should be a wide, straight-leading corridor with the blasted door_ \- the lights above his head flicker out of existence, and a sudden, overwhelmingly _loud_ red heat of a ligtsaber blade materialises at Hux's neck. The blaster slips from his fingers, pulled by the Force, and clatters on the floor.

 _Impossible_ , Hux's mind rallies against the facts, angrily and futilely. The stray sparks of plasma catch in the thick material of his collar. The lights come back online, flooding the corridor with sickly blue-green light. Out of the corner of his eye, Hux can see the blurry outline of Ren's shadow cast on the wall, just behind his own. Hux stands, stock-still, as if caught in a bad dream. As if, as long as he doesn't move, he doesn't have to acknowledge that he...

"You lost," comes a deep voice from behind him, and it should be smug, it should be mocking him - but instead it's laced with the same amount of shocked disbelief that Hux is now feeling.

Strange numbness is spreading through his limbs and Hux wants to - _needs_ to - fight it. His logic is in shambles, the calm and effective construct of knowledge and reason that gives him superiority over every situation is cracked, shattered to pieces. He scrambles in the deeper reservoirs: the ever-present anger, always simmering and so rarely let out. He lets it out now, lets the outrage bubble up within him, straightening his shoulders and setting his jaw into a firm line.

Armed with his anger, Hux turns around, leaning daringly into the heat of the blade as he goes. It sizzles threateningly close, catching a loose strand of hair, just the tips. The air fills with the sharp smell of sulphur. Hux ignores it, eyes fixed on Ren's - open, surprised, slowly recovering, slowly apprehending his own victory - face.

"You rigged the simulation," he accuses him. It's now clear as a day - Ren has obviously manipulated the programming. Hux has been too gracious when he allowed him to choose the scenario...

"I took full advantage of the environment," Ren corrects him - and there's the smugness that's been missing.

"It's still cheating," Hux grits through clenched teeth.

Ren actually laughs at that, a short exhilarated sound, and deactivates the blade. Moving a step forward, he brings his hands - dark brown leather, worn at the seams - to either side of Hux's face.

"Someone told me, your Majesty," he sing-songs, "that all is fair in war."

Hux suppresses the urge to strike out and knock down those hands. "This trick wouldn't work on a real base–"

"But that's just it, isn't it?" Kylo is laughing fully now, his eyes dancing, giddy with mirth. "This isn't a real base. It's just a simulation. Perhaps you would've won on a real base - just like you won in a real forest. But this is a simulation, and you were counting on it, strategising within the parameters of it -  and I beat you in here. Because you forgot that the parameters weren't real. They're part of the simulation, too."

It makes terrible sense. Hux lost this round exactly the way Ren did his - relying on what he deemed to be his strength. Relying on his prowess within simulations.

The realisation settles within him like a rock thrown into a pond, spreading concentric ripples all over the water surface. He lost. Anger won't help him. The situation is out of his hands. It's time to deliver the prize.

It should frighten him. Or perhaps sicken him. He never really considered the possibility of losing and now that he has, he doesn't know if he can follow through with the game. If he'll be able to. But everything Hux can feel right now is a strange sort of hollowness - as if he is an empty vessel, waiting to be filled. The situation is out of his hands, his will matters nothing. It should be frightening but strangely, it's not. Hux tries to pinpoint why not and for once, his magnificent mind draws blank.

Kylo is watching him, smooth gloved fingers framing his face, something behind his eyes pressing gently around the forefront of Hux's mind, not cutting in, just feeling around the edges.

"How do you feel?" he asks, softly, quietly, and Hux knows it's a side-step in their game, an offer of  a way out. Should he say - "wrong", or "scared" or even "I don't know", Ren would stop this at once, Hux can feel it, the reassurance shining in the depths of Ren's eyes. It's this - this consideration, coming from the most reckless person Hux knows - that settles around the base of his decision, making it feel as natural as breathing.

"I feel ready," he says, locks his eyes with Ren's, and slowly, deliberately, he slides to his knees.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amazing art for this chapter by @creepycreepyscapewizard - [look here](http://sinningsquire.tumblr.com/post/154982376171/he-never-really-considered-the-possibility-of) and be in awe like me :)


	7. VII

It's worth it, to get on his knees, it's absolutely worth the look of stunned awe washing over Kylo's face, flush blooming on his cheeks and eyes darkening with rich, soft-edged lust.

The decrepit walls and fluorescent light around them disappears in a blink, the end of program registering as a soft _click_ in the holoprojectors. The bare room yawns around them, blue-dark in the corners, just a glimmer of light coming through the hatch window in the door at the far-away end. The temperature doesn't change and yet Hux feels as if hit with a draught of chilly air, and at the same time, heat spreads under his skin, his heart beating faster.

He feels the leather of a glove on his temple, fingers carding through his hair, and he bows his head and lets himself be guided forward, to press his face against Ren's groin. There's a sharp intake of breath in the dark above him, and Hux nuzzles the stiffening outline of Ren's cock in his trousers, rubs his cheeks and nose all over the quickly hardening length and for an odd, disappointing second he wonders if that's going to be all, to pull out Ren's cock and suck it till he comes, here, on his knees in the dark.

Then the hand in his hair tightens , not to the point of pain but skimming the thrilling edge of it, and Ren pulls his head away from himself. Hux's eyes, accustomed to the dark, can just about make out the twin points of light reflected in Ren's eyes, the wet gleam of teeth in a grin.

"It won't be so easy, your Majesty," Ren rumbles, deep and breathy, and releases Hux's hair to cup his face, fingers brushing over his throat, thumb coming to rest at the corner of his mouth. Hux catches the gloved tip between his teeth, runs his tongue along the seam. Teasing. Sinks his teeth into the leather, daring. His pulse races, he can feel it in the vein on his neck, against the feather-light pressure of one gloved finger.

"Not here," Ren says and pulls his thumb out of Hux's mouth. Hux lets it go with a wet pop of his lips. "Not here. I want to see you."

 

*

 

Hux has lost track of how much time has passed. Somewhere between kisses filling his mouth until the only taste he could remember is Ren, rolling over him like a flood until he doesn't _want_ to breathe again, somewhere between thorough fingers mapping out every inch of skin like a strategist pouring his genius into a map of a battlefield, Hux had slipped into a kind of trance.

Thoughts surface from the haze at odd intervals and are gone before he can catch them, their tails slipping through his mind, blurred and boneless. The golden Naboo daylight behind the window pales and shifts into off- white, the afternoon sun rays filtered through the curtains turning the room into a bleached photograph. Hux rests his head against the headboard, limp and lolling on the pillows.

He can't even keep his eyes open, the remnants of his consciousness reduced to the feeling of skin on skin, to the drag of his flesh inside a warm body as Kylo rides him, achingly, maddeningly slow. Hux knows this sight, of the Knight in his lap, he knows it too well–

Any other day, he would let Kylo bounce in his lap with his arms bound behind his back, eyes feasting on the golden sheen of sweat on skin pulled taut over collarbones and ribs heaving with ragged breaths. He would let him chase his own release without hope of ever catching it, let him beg for Hux's hand on his cock - and Ren would be lost in it, eyes rolled back in his head, fucking himself with abandon, a wreck of Hux's making, gone for words, beyond control, beyond shame. But today, everything is new, and Hux forces his tired eyes to look, to learn a picture whose contours he thinks he recognises, but the colours are entirely foreign.   

Ren is not lost in his head this time. He's mercilessly present, his burning attention the only sharp and solid thing in a sea of sensations.  His eyes never leave Hux, he doesn't miss the smallest twitch, the faintest groan – and he's slowing down every time Hux tries to claw his way back to consciousness, back to control. His hips go still entirely every time Hux tries to hold back the shameful sounds he's making, and he resumes the glacial roll only when Hux gives in, lets his jaw go slack, lets the moans out.

There are hands on his shoulders, sweat mingling between their chests, hot and wet lips on his pulse point, the wash of cool air when they're gone. Ren's eyes bore into his, determined, hungry, and Hux is the goal, Hux is the sustenance.

At one point, when Ren is just breathing against his mouth, Hux tries to speak. Ren is still seated full in his lap, the arousal long ago transformed from pleasure over pain into the very air that fills Hux's lungs, everything else just a memory. Hux barely recognises his voice when he succeeds in getting the words out.

"You're spoiling me," he says, and what he means is _You're coddling me_ , you're cushioning me with pleasure to make up for something that will come later.

Against his lips, Ren chuckles weakly. "Did you think submitting would hurt?" He pecks at Hux's lips and leans his forehead against his and Hux thinks he can hear an echo of _Did you think I would hurt you?_

Hux wishes he'd had the ability to think before the words tumbled out of his mouth but that's perhaps the point of all this. He has lost control over himself and all the dark things that he normally keeps locked away had sensed their chance and are now spilling out of him in a sluggish, damning trickle, one by one.

"I can bear pain," his mouth says for him, still set in its haughty and evasive ways, and he tries to amend it with truth - at least, with a part of the truth: "I would bear it for you."

It sounds very much like _I would be good for you_ , and Hux cringes when he realises that's the whole truth. That's what he wants.

Ren watches him, from this close, studying every contraction and dilation of Hux's pupils, every change in the pattern of his breathing. He smiles, exhausted and unforgiving and hell-bent on his cause.

"Would you really prefer pain to gentleness?"

A pause. Then, Hux finds what he thinks is a good decoy answer. "I wasn't always gentle with you, either."

And perhaps that's why he agreed to this, because he wanted to - to repent. Because he could let Ren take some measure of revenge, let him pay back for the cruel things that Hux had inflicted on him over time. Then they would be even, the sins between them swept off the table, and then... Then they both could take a step back from this entanglement, re-establish some semblance of safe distance, Hux no longer left to doubt if it's guilt that makes him care...

Ren braces his arms on the headboard on both sides of his face, elbows locked, tendons standing out, skin glistening with sweat. He's a towering arch of raw power above Hux, an idol he could worship, a faith he could adhere to, and perhaps he already does.

"Hux, you never harmed me."

Hux closes his fingers over hipbones, prominent and strangely narrow in a body so strong.

"But I did hurt you."

They both know Hux isn't talking about the bites and bruises and welts. He talks about the year gone by with Hux making Ren dress and go away every time. He talks about the night when Hux had driven Ren away because he couldn't face his own need. He talks about all the words Hux didn't say when Ren needed to hear them. About the starved man that came to Hux's life and Hux let him go hungry - just because he himself didn't know that he was hungry, too.

A kiss, and another one, to his closed eyelids. "And here we are," Ren says simply.

The plain, undeniable simplicity of it punches the air out of Hux's lungs. Here _we are_ , not here _I am_. Hux has been carving, painting, shaping Ren with pain and pleasure and control, barely noticing that in doing so, he had carved a Ren-shaped place within himself and now he can't go on living with that place unoccupied. Ren had hollowed him out and filled him in return, tamed him, tied him to himself - just as Hux had done with him.  

Here they are. Power with its countless different forms binds them together like a red string. Hux can taste all the different flavours - like blood between his teeth, like wine at the back of his throat, like fire under his skin, drums in his veins, his bones heavy as a planet core. The Knight, sworn to protect the Emperor, to enforce his will. The master, taking care of Ren where he doesn't know how to. Kylo, making his home inside Hux, changing him irreversibly, in his palm the simple truth that should he ever walk away, Hux would not know what to do.

It's not guilt that ties Hux to Kylo, it's not the debt of hungry days he owes him that makes him care. It's something deeper, potentially more dangerous. It's what had bent Hux's knees before his Knight, it's what makes him throw back his head and cry out and shudder under Ren's burning gaze: it's trust. Hux trusts Kylo, as simple and destructive as that.  

Ren is the strongest, most powerful fighter of his Knights and yet Hux has overpowered him because he knows him. Hux's cunning and foresight had secured him the Galactic throne but Kylo has outsmarted him because he knows him. They're each other's weaknesses and together, they are unstoppable.

"Kylo," says Hux and thinks _yours_ and _please_ and _now_ and _always_ , and this time, when Kylo starts moving, he doesn't stop.

 

*

 

"So you _were_ bribing me," Hux accuses half-heartedly, closing his eyes when Ren nods at him in the mirror.

"What, with amazing sex?" Ren chuckles. Hux feels the vibration of it through Ren's chest pressed against his shoulder blades, every warm exhale of Ren's breath on the back of his ear. Long, deft fingers work all over his face, spreading the creamy foundation. It's cooling and smells vaguely minty.

"It was too good to be true, that nothing horrendous would come out of it," Hux sighs. It emerges a little slurred, as he can't articulate much with Ren's fingers dancing all around his mouth.

"You _are_ mine for the day," Ren reminds him, grin in his voice. Hux cracks one eye open to peek into the mirror. Yes, grinning like a twinkling star, entirely unrepentant, as he gleefully applies Naboo ceremonial make-up to the Emperor's face.

"Don't look! And you once smeared gold paint all over me. Do you know how long it took me to get it from behind my–"

"All right, I get it," Hux groans. " _This_ is your revenge."

"What happened to 'I would bear pain for you?'" Ren's breath teases over his earlobe. Another tease, this time of a soft brush, dusting over his cheeks.

"This indignity _is_ painful," Hux grumbles, just for the sake of grumbling.

"This indignity, as you call it, is an important and esteemed aspect of culture on this planet you agreed to protect and respect," Ren intones.

"I just don't think it looks good on me," Hux quips.

He recalls Ren's usual colour scheme - blindingly white foundation, shocks of intense colours - crimson, purple, tricopper black - in dots and sharp lines. Detailed finesse and brutal contrast at once, and it suits Kylo and his dramatic, dark hair, his huge, amber eyes. Hux isn't so sure it would pair well with his own colouring. His fiery ginger hair doesn't go well together with any other rich colour without screaming garish. His features are forming a rather handsome whole but are unimpressive on their own - a short, well-formed nose, full, symmetric lips, strong, rounded jaw, long and pale eyelashes, a smattering of freckles that gets worse every time his pale skin sees the sun. He imagines vibrant red and flawless white over his face and knows that he's going to look like a clown.

The sweeps of brushes and the careful smears of something liquid and sticky on various parts of his face are soothing, though. Hux leans back into Ren's chest, his eyes no longer squeezed shut out of order but simply closed, relaxed, content. He knows that it takes Ren about half an hour to do his own face, and he realises he's been dozing off only after the slight hitch of breath behind his ear jolts him awake.

"You can look," Kylo whispers behind him, and with the curiosity getting better of him, Hux opens his eyes.

Two otherworldly beautiful faces stare back at him from the mirror.

Somehow, some time when Hux was half-asleep, Kylo had managed to do his own face too. He's as striking as ever, snow-white with his eyes and upper lip lined in black, Imperial red splitting his bottom lip in half, and golden dots gleaming high on his cheekbones. He wears the Emperor's colours, Hux realises, and he has to remember to tear his eyes from him and focus on the stranger in the mirror - on his own face.

His fears have been entirely unfounded. Kylo Ren apparently knows his colours. Hux's face is covered in white foundation but the exact shade is off, not the cold glare of pure white but a warmer, duskier tone - like of a polished bone.

Leaning closer to the mirror, Hux can see little flecks of powder smattered across his temples and cheekbones - it catches the rapidly fading daylight as he turns his head this way and that, tiny sparks flaring up and fading again. It's gold powder, he realises, sprinkled over the foundation. Small dots of gold adorn his cheekbones, just like on Kylo's face. They bring out the colour of his eyes.

There's no dreaded black or red, just a dove-grey with slight tint of blue on his upper lip, reminding Hux of his old military shirts. It makes him smile with nostalgia - First Order uniform colours were the rare ones that had really complimented his hair.  

He looks magnificent. He tells Kylo as much.

The Knight doesn't reply. He's just sitting there, with Hux seated between his spread thighs, leaning a bit to the right to look over Hux's shoulder. He observes his creation with eyes shining with... is that wistfulness? It's harder to tell, with his face so perfected, so beautifully obscured.

And then, as if he decided that his indulgence is over, Ren gets up, swinging his long leg over the backless seat, and disappears into the refresher. A moment later he emerges, in his hands a warm, wet cloth, and a bottle of bluish tonic. He stands in front of Hux, handing both items to him with regretful reluctance written clear all over him, visible even through the make-up.

"You better start removing it," he tells Hux, too lightly not to sound sour, "it takes some time to wash it all clean and the dinner at the Naboo Academy of Arts starts at nightfall."

Ah. So this is it. Suddenly Hux knows what Kylo saw in that mirror. He takes the cloth and the tonic from him and sets both items on the vanity table. Then he grabs Kylo's hand before he can disappear again and pulls him down, hard and without warning, onto the seat next to him.

Framed with the carved wood of the silver-plated mirror, their faces look like a royal portrait. Distinguished and lavish, the Galactic power couple, the Imperial sublime.

"Do you really want me to wash it off?" Hux asks quietly.

Kylo drinks in the sight for a long moment and then shakes his head, imperceptibly, and averts his eyes.

"Then I won't," Hux states firmly. "I _am_ yours for the day," he reminds Kylo, nudging his shoulder.

"The day ends with nightfall," Kylo mutters unhappily.

"Then I guess I'll have to exceed the limit."

Kylo is looking at him searchingly, his eyes dark even without the contrast of white around them.

"People will think..." he trails off, unwilling to even voice it, as if the dream could pop like a bubble once it's said out loud.

Yes, Hux thinks. They will make all kinds of assumptions, the court gossip mill going wild when they'll see the Emperor wearing a ceremonial make-up matching with his Knight. One thing is certain: there will be no impertinent thoughts about arranging marriages for the Emperor any more.

"They will," he agrees, and rises from the seat, extending his hand. With a slow smile, Kylo takes it.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone loves me, draw me the "royal portrait" from the end of this chapter. Thank you.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at [ my Tumblr. ](http://sinningsquire.tumblr.com/)


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